Keyboards are an important and popular input mechanism for providing input to a variety of computing devices. In order to keep up with consumer demand for smaller, more portable computing devices, keyboard designs have moved toward correspondingly thinner and smaller designs. Making the keyboard smaller with respect to the total area of the keyboard works in tension with the need for keyboards to remain usable given the size constraints of the human finger that is used for actuating the keyboard elements, or keys. The thickness of the keyboard, however, can still be improved to provide a thinner, sleeker design for either the computing device in which it is embedded, or the keyboard peripheral device itself, making for improved portability of the keyboard device.